


Little Yellow Tags: Part 1

by lurkdusoleil



Series: Little Yellow Tags [1]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Skank!Blaine, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-16
Updated: 2013-07-16
Packaged: 2017-12-20 10:04:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/885968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lurkdusoleil/pseuds/lurkdusoleil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurt Hummel is struggling his way through his last year of high school. To his surprise, it's the newest member of the Skanks who helps him along.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Yellow Tags: Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is told out of order, in a series of one-shots. They will be posted in in-story chronological order. However, if you wish to read it as such, the story titles will be labeled to match the order in which I wrote them. Check the masterlist to read as you like. Any future stories will be 
> 
> Warnings and tags will change in each part. Chapter 1 contains swearing, cigarettes, implied homophobia.

He’d come at the beginning of the year, amid a cloud of rumors.   
  
_ He got kicked out of his old school for setting it on fire. _   
  
_ He and Quinn met at a tattoo convention, and he followed her out here. _   
  
_ His parents disowned him for giving everyone on his block an STD. _   
  
_ He’s the secret lovechild of Kelly Osbourne and truck driver, and he grew up in the back of his dad’s truck. _   
  
Kurt’s not exactly sure how everyone figures that he’s Kelly Osbourne’s son, given that she’d have given birth to him when she was about eleven, but that’s McKinley’s math department for you.   
  
Either way, Blaine Anderson is the name on everyone’s lips.   
  
He spends most of his time under the bleachers with Quinn and the other skanks. Tight motocross jeans, painted military boots, leather jacket, ripped t-shirt that looks like it met with Quinn’s claws and actually shows peeks of a black mesh undershirt that hides nothing of his taut torso. His black, curly hair is streaked with navy blue and red, and he’s got blue and red nail polish on the long fingers that fiddle with an ever-present lit cigarette. Kurt’s not sure, but he thinks Blaine wears actual eyeliner--it’s hard to tell, though, from so far away. He’s never seen Blaine up close, so he can’t be entirely sure, but he’ll admit to trying to figure it out when no one is looking.   
  
At least, when he  _ thinks _ no one is looking.   
  
He can’t look today, though. Red slushie drips from his face and onto his clothes, and with a resigned sigh he heads for the nearest girl’s bathroom, his emergency kit already prepared in his bag. It’s still the first week, so it’s been expected, though Kurt’s surprised he got to Friday, even with Karofsky transferring at the end of last year after their...altercation.   
  
He’s just a walking target, after all.   
  
The bathroom is empty, judging by the complete and utter lack of giggles or questions when he enters. He locks the door behind him and strides right to the sinks. He drops his bag and turns on the water, getting the temperature right before he strips his jacket and lays it across the empty sink beside him, followed by his button-up--he’ll have to spot treat all of it as soon as he gets home, it’s an expensive outfit, the suit is an  _ actual _ Vivienne Westwood he’d scored online--but thankfully not his pants or suspenders--the slushie appeared to have missed them. That’d save some time, at least, though not enough. He’s sure Rachel’s already storming out of the auditorium where they were supposed to rehearse--   
  
The water is soothing on his head, and the warmth replaces the chill of the ice, sending shivers down his spine under his undershirt. He looks forward to the sweater he packed, a thin wool picked specifically to match any part of his outfit that might happen to get stained.   
  
When he can’t feel anymore stickiness in his hair, he runs the water over his face quickly and pulls back, reaching out blindly for the paper towel dispenser next to him. His hand hits wall several times before he hears the towels being pulled and then, suddenly, they’re in his hand.   
  
He snaps his head up and stumbles back in surprise, opening his eyes despite the water and potentially some missed slushie still streaming down from his hair.    
  
“Holy shit.”   
  
“Whoa,” Blaine says, suddenly in Kurt’s line of vision. His palms are up placatingly, and he backs up a few steps, knotting his brow at Kurt. “Calm down.”   
  
Kurt stares while he takes several deep breaths, trying to calm his heart into something less resembling a frantic whir. Turns out Blaine  _ does _ wear eyeliner, and he has a  _ tongue ring _ that flashes when Blaine licks his lower lip unconsciously.   
  
“How the hell did you get in here?” Kurt snaps, wiping back his hair roughly and stopping the drip onto his forehead. “I know I locked the door.”   
  
“I was in here the whole time,” Blaine says, tilting his head toward one of the stalls. Kurt instantly glances over, half-expecting Quinn to be standing there, smoking a cigarette. Those two  _ would _ fool around in school--   
  
But they’re alone. And nothing smells like cigarette smoke.   
  
“Why?” Kurt asks simply.   
  
Blaine narrows his eyes at him.   
  
“Probably the same reason you do.”   
  
Kurt narrows his eyes right back, and is mildly impressed when Blaine doesn’t flinch like Finn does when he pulls the same look.   
  
“I don’t use the boys’ bathroom because--”  
  
“--because then the guys who torment you can’t follow you in?” Blaine says. “And because, as a gay guy with a stereotypical sense of neatness, you feel just a little more comfortable in a place that doesn’t smell like old eggs and gym socks?”   
  
Kurt huffs and rolls his eyes, turning to the mirror and mopping up the water with the towels Blaine had given him. But inside, he questions--Blaine is  _ gay? _   
  
“And you’re expecting me to believe you’re the same?”   
  
“What? I don’t look neat?”   
  
Kurt glares over at him before grabbing more towels.   
  
“In a ripped shirt and mesh?”   
  
“How I choose to dress doesn’t have anything to do with neatness,” Blaine says casually, one corner of his mouth twitching up. “Do I look dirty to you?”   
  
Kurt looks him over at the invitation, from broad shoulders to tiny calves tucked into those slouchy, color-splattered boots, rising back up to meet a faint smirk. He turns away, his face flushing with a little bit of embarrassment at Blaine watching Kurt watch him.   
  
“Oh, don’t pretend you haven’t been doing it every chance you get,” Blaine chuckles, reaching into his pockets and pulling out a cigarette and a purple lighter before sauntering to the far side of the bathroom, hopping up to sit on the last sink. He lights the cigarette and blows the smoke up to a vent overhead, pocketing the lighter.   
  
“Excuse me?”   
  
Kurt drops the last of the damp paper towels into the garbage and turns to face Blaine, one hand on his hip and the other braced on the sink.   
  
“There’s an implication that I was looking back in that statement,” Blaine murmurs, cigarette hanging from his lips, his legs swinging back and forth like a child bored in time-out. “You should pay attention.”   
  
“I do pay attention,” Kurt sneers, but it’s half-hearted. After all, he hadn’t noticed Blaine in the bathroom, though he did have an excuse. And he hadn’t noticed Blaine watching him, either. In any case, things are getting awkward, and he still has to style his hair and slap on some moisturizer before he goes to find Rachel, and he doesn’t have any desire to do it in front of a complete stranger who’s all but admitted to being gay and at least a little interested. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get dressed and finished getting ready.”   
  
“I don’t mind,” Blaine shrugs, leaning back against the mirror. He rakes his eyes down to Kurt’s chest, where his undershirt stretches tight across the muscles that had broadened and developed alarmingly over the summer, before pulling them back up and grinning. He puffs at his cigarette and closes his eyes, turning his head back and forth as though to showcase the fact.   
  
“You’re not going to leave, are you?”   
  
“Nope.”   
  
“Fine.”   
  
Kurt leans down into his bag and pulls out his hairspray and moisturizer, quickly working both to put himself together as best as he can before tossing them back in and searching for his sweater.   
  
It’s not in there.   
  
“Did you go in my bag?”   
  
Blaine opens one eye and looks over.   
  
“No,” he says. “I may not have much of a problem with petty thievery, but I doubt you’ve got anything I want in there. Why?”   
  
Kurt shakes his head. Blaine has clearly earned his reputation. Petty thievery indeed. And the room still smells, even though Blaine always blows his stream of chemicals at the vent. Kurt wouldn’t be surprised if Blaine pulled out a pocket knife or, given his newly revealed sexuality, propositioned Kurt for a blow-job.   
  
“My sweater’s missing,” he says instead. “I packed it this morning just in case and it’s not in here. You’re the only one who could’ve gotten it without me noticing.”   
  
“Maybe you hallucinated,” Blaine suggests, hopping down off the sink and crushing his finished cigarette under his boot and leaving it on the floor amid a smear of black ash. His innocent look doesn’t fool Kurt for one second, though.   
  
“Well I can’t go outside like this, and my other clothes are covered in corn syrup and melted food coloring.”   
  
Blaine smiles quietly for a moment before flicking his tongue ring against his teeth, a tiny  _ clack _ sounding again and again as he appears to consider.   
  
“Normally I’d say it wasn’t my problem, but considering you didn’t give me any flak about smoking in school, I can ignore all the dirty looks and attitude you’ve given me and offer you my jacket.”   
  
Kurt frowns.   
  
“Why would you do that?”   
  
“Like I said,” Blaine insists, actually shrugging off his jacket and holding it out to Kurt, “I appreciate you not ratting me out or giving me a lecture, like I’m too stupid to realize what I’m doing. So I’m returning the favor. You can wear my jacket out to your car, and that way no one has to know what you’ve been hiding under all your fabulous finery.”   
  
_ There’s _ the sleazy comment Kurt was waiting for, though it’s not nearly as bad as he was expecting. Actually, nothing about Blaine is as bad as he was expecting from what little contact he’s had with Quinn and the rumors lead him to believe. Well, the smoking, but even then he’d blown the smoke at the vent and done it away from Kurt, and from what good it did he needn’t have made the attempt. But he had.   
  
“Thank you,” Kurt says simply, deciding to take the gesture of kindness at face-value and trying not to look too suspicious. He reaches out for the coat, but Blaine walks around him and holds it open and up, like he’s expecting to put it on for Kurt. Kurt stares.   
  
“Well?” Blaine urges, looking down at it expectantly. Kurt turns automatically and puts his arms back, letting Blaine slide it up onto his shoulders and straighten it with a few brushes over the back.   
  
“There. Looks good on you.”   
  
“Thanks,” Kurt says carefully, gathering his soiled clothes from the sink and grabbing his bag. Blaine unlocks the door and holds it open for Kurt, gesturing for him to pass with an exaggerated bow. Kurt grimaces and walks by, utterly confused by this turn of events. Blaine Anderson, acting like a  _ gentleman? _ Obviously he’s being ironic, but still...it’s weird. Just like it’s weird that Blaine walks calmly alongside him through the school, ignoring the strange looks they get from the few stragglers left at the end of the day. He remains silent and steady all the way out to the car, while Kurt shifts his eyes around and holds his chin up in a defensive gesture.   
  
When they arrive, there’s some catcalls from a group of jocks hanging out by an old truck three spaces down. Kurt unlocks his car and turns away from them, not looking forward to letting them see him in just an undershirt. But he braces himself, stowing his bag in his car before he turns back to Blaine--   
  
\--who isn’t there.   
  
“Blaine?”   
  
Kurt whirls around when he hears the other door to his Navigator opening. Blaine slips into the passenger’s seat and buckles himself in, looking over at Kurt expectantly.   
  
“You getting in?”   
  
Kurt’s eyes dart between him and the jocks, who look far too interested in them, before he jumps in, locking his doors before he buckles and turns on the car.   
  
“What the hell are you doing?” he grits out between clenched teeth, pulling the vehicle out of the space and away from the jocks, taking the long way around the parking lot to avoid them.   
  
“Saving you from having to let them see you practically half-naked,” Blaine explains calmly, relaxing in his seat. “Your shirt is basically see-through. And besides, I didn’t want to have to deal with them on my own, anyway. Unlike you, their gaydar picked up my preferences.”   
  
“Oh,” Kurt blurts. He sighs. “Okay. So.” He pauses at the exit of the lot, looking over at Blaine. A wash of fellow-feeling flows through him, and he gives Blaine a smile borne purely of empathy. After all, Blaine’s gay, just like him, no matter what other differences they have. And gay at McKinley means only one thing to most of the population. “What way? I’ll drive you home.”   
  
Blaine chews his lip and shrugs.   
  
“Just go home,” he says. “I’ll walk from your place.”   
  
“But you don’t even know if I live close to you,” Kurt presses. “Is there a reason--”   
  
“I just like walking,” Blaine interrupts. “Are you just gonna sit here and wait for the jocks to come see if we’re making out or something?”   
  
Kurt blushes, full-on, then, unable to stop the image of himself and Blaine tumbling around in the back seat, lips tangling--   
  
“Fine,” Kurt snaps, his mouth drawing tight as he turns out onto the street and toward his house.   
  
Blaine turns on the radio while Kurt drives, and Kurt prepares to raise an eyebrow at whatever station Blaine picks, but he leaves it right where it is with apparent enjoyment. Kurt raises an eyebrow anyway, because this is far more interesting than Blaine turning it to the yawning abyss of a punk rock station.   
  
“You like Broadway?”   
  
“I thought I already came out to you.”   
  
“Fair enough.” Kurt decides to let it go.   
  
They pull onto Kurt’s street two songs later, one of which Blaine hums under his breath, just low enough so Kurt can’t really catch what his voice sounds like. It’s just a faint vibration, a flicker in Blaine’s throat, a shift beneath the stubbled, tanned skin. And maybe he should keep his eyes on the road and not on Blaine’s neck like he’s a vampire, though he has to admit to himself that, yes, if he were, Blaine’s would be the first neck on his list, it’s an attractive, maybe  _ receptive _ neck, and while Kurt of last year might have balked at thinking about that neck graphically, Kurt’s had a lot of hormones running through his system since his last spurt of puberty--   
  
Kurt snaps his eyes back and pulls up alongside his house and into the driveway. He won’t think about Blaine’s neck--but he definitely wants to think about the hum, it’s enough to capture his interest. It brushes Kurt’s ears like the flutter of wings just behind him, and Kurt’s never fast enough to catch what kind of wings they are, whether high-flying or broken or feathered or clawed.   
  
“This is it,” Kurt says unnecessarily, putting the Navigator in park and slipping out, grabbing his bag and rounding to Blaine’s side to return his jacket. But Blaine’s already walking up to his front door.   
  
“What are you doing?” Kurt asks, running up behind him and catching him right at the front door.   
  
“I’m coming in.”   
  
“Okay, look,” Kurt says, his patience ending. His home is the only semi-private place he has left, and he doesn’t want anyone just stomping in without his express permission. “You may be weirdly nice for a Skank, and you may have helped me out, but we are not friends. We barely know each other. And as I do not approve of your lifestyle and your habits, I doubt a friendship between us would get very far.”   
  
Kurt opens the door and steps inside, dropping his bag, fully intending to whirl around and deliver one final line to Blaine before slamming it in his face, but Blaine steps in with him, shutting the door himself and facing Kurt with his jaw set and his eyes fierce.   
  
“Didn’t you  _ just _ say we don’t know each other?” Blaine asks, his eyes dangerous and gleaming wild behind his thickly coated lashes. They look like actual fire, gold and red and brown and hot. “How do you know my lifestyle, outside of what you assume from the fact that I hang out with certain people and the way I dress? I can understand you not liking me smoking, but that doesn’t mean anything to who I am as a person.”   
  
“You said you committed petty thievery,” Kurt retorts, but Blaine just laughs.   
  
“I actually said I don’t have a problem with it. I said nothing about doing it myself, and clearly you wouldn’t know a joke if it spat on your secondhand Paul Smith boots.”   
  
“You can’t expect me not to draw conclusions,” Kurt says, gearing up for what he hopes is one of his more impressive speeches. “The people you hang out with bully others, take their lunch money and pocket anything they can grab from whatever store they enter. They beat people up and they skip class and all they’re concerned with is saving up enough for another ill-thought-out tattoo that’ll sag badly in another thirty years, and that’s a generous timeline with how much they all smoke. And yes, I do judge your fashion sense, because it’s horrendous and tacky and while I’m sure I could work with some of the pieces you’re wearing, there is no excuse for a mesh shirt. None. This is not a muscle bar in Miami, and it’s not the eighties, and it’s not a cheap sex club. And since you’re gay and obviously smarter than the average lemming, you know that the clothes you wear send a message to whoever looks at you, and you are clearly trying to send a message that you are part of a subculture that does not concern itself with the greater part of society outside of what you can intimidate out of it. And no. I do not want to be friends with someone like that.”   
  
“You’re awfully judgemental for someone who hides behind layers of couture so no one sees who he really is,” Blaine snaps back, stepping forward into Kurt’s space. Kurt doesn’t back down. “Clothes do say something to the world, but they don’t always tell the truth, and you know that better than anyone. You’re not nearly as sophisticated and mature as you seem to think you are, judging by the flamboyant professional thing you’ve had going on. You’re hiding. I don’t know what, but I figured, since we’re both suffering the same fate of being gay in a midwestern public high school, and since you’ve been checking me out for days, we might be able to get to know one another outside of that front. But obviously you don’t have the--”   
  
“Dude, what’s going on?”   
  
Kurt turns around and stares at Finn, who’s got leftover Dorito dust on the corner of his mouth, but still manages to look at least vaguely threatening when he glances over at Blaine, who shut up the moment Finn’s voice cut over his.   
  
“Why is he here?” Finn asks. “And why are you wearing that jacket?”   
  
“Don’t worry about it, Finn,” Kurt says, tugging the jacket off. “Blaine did me a favor, but now he’s leaving. Right, Blaine?” Kurt turns around and holds the jacket out, raising his eyebrows and keeping his mouth shut against the urge to say more.   
  
“Right,” Blaine says, suddenly deadpan as he slips his jacket on and turns around. He opens the door and leaves without a word.   
  
“Seriously...what was that?” Finn pushes, and Kurt sighs and rolls his eyes, grabbing his stuff from the ground.   
  
“Nothing, Finn,” Kurt insists. “I got slushied and lost my extra shirt, so Blaine leant me his jacket so I wouldn’t have to come home in just my undershirt.”   
  
“And...what about you guys yelling at each other?”   
  
“Like I said, nothing,” Kurt says. “I’m going up to my room, now. Can you not spread this around like wildfire, please? I don’t want rumors flying about me at school anymore than they already will.”   
  
“Okay,” Finn says. “So does that mean I can’t tell Rachel?”   
  
“It means Rachel is the last person you should tell,” Kurt agrees. He walks up the stairs and into his room, hoping Finn doesn’t forget or ignore his wish.   
  
\--   
  
He thinks about Blaine all afternoon, and all night, and into the morning, unable to remove the thought of him from his mind. Had he judged too quickly? Had he been too cruel, too quick to look at nothing but the surface? He’s self-aware enough to know that he can be too harsh--he’s been told so enough times--but what else can he be? If he judges people too kindly, they’ll just step all over him. Like Karofsky, whose secret he kept, and what did it get him?   
  
Kurt shudders, unwilling to think about all that Karofsky did, all that he  _ might _ have done, if Coach Beiste hadn’t walked in at the right moment. Instead, he decides to wind a scarf around his neck instead of a bowtie, needing the extra distance it provides. Maybe Blaine was right about  _ one _ thing.   
  
He skips breakfast and heads out. What he needs is a  _ coffee _ , to get his head on straight--   
  
He hops in the Navigator and his eye is caught by his passenger’s seat--specifically, his sweater folded neatly--and correctly--on it, a scrap of paper resting on top of it. Kurt grabs it and reads the loopy scrawl.   
  
_ Do most Skanks give second chances? 555-0157 _   
  
Kurt sits there thinking long enough that he'll have to choose between forgetting his plans for the mall with Mercedes or going without coffee before he pulls out his phone and sends a single text.   
  
_ I thought you didn’t commit petty thievery? _


End file.
